Can We Pretend?
by houseofmalfoy
Summary: They're no longer twenty-two-year-old fools, and since their escape from Azkaban nothing really feels like it matters anymore. Things aren't what they used to be.


_Can we pretend that I'm 22 today? Dancing on the tables with you, yeah  
Can we pretend that we all end up okay? I just wanna forget with you, yeah_

oOo

Rodolphus lifts the bottle to his lips, a harder task than it should be the way he's crouched against the headboard. The few drops of fire whiskey that fall down his chin are cleaned up with the smallest gesture of his hand so it hardly matters. The bottle gets taken from him by Augustus, who's laying with his head on his chest and who doesn't do a much better job of taking a swig from it.

It doesn't matter at all when they're equally messed up these days, he guesses. It's been months since the break-out from Azkaban now, but it might as well have been a day. Rodolphus doesn't feel a bit stronger, not a bit less empty, than he did when they'd first stepped out into the open air for the first time in fourteen years.

A lot can be said about the crimes they committed to end up in that place, a lot that Rodolphus wouldn't deny at all, but he doesn't think Azkaban and her dementors are even the smallest bit more humane.

There's comfort in going through this hell of slow, painfully slow, healing with someone who understands exactly what he's going through, and Rodolphus mindlessly tightens the way his arm is slouched around Augustus' form in a gesture that he hopes conveys everything he doesn't have the energy to say out loud.

It's become an unspoken understanding that they're just like they were before Azkaban. Loved and together, if a little more fucked up and a little more drunk and just a little older. Rodolphus doesn't think he'd have survived the past few months if it wasn't for that knowledge.

Knowing Augustus has survived too, knowing he's here with him as good and as bad as they are, it's a lifeline he hadn't expected to have but one he can't do without anymore. It's keeping Rodolphus afloat to know they're together and they're alive and even if the future is as hopeless as the past is, that knowledge is enough for now. They're fucked, there's no way around it, but they're fucked together and that counts for something. It has to.

They haven't said anything since they've both been awake but they don't really need to, not if all there is to say is the same empty statements repeated over and over and over again. Complaints of exhaustion and of pain and of nightmares; of always being cold and of having a neverending hangover and of seemingly never feeling anything anymore these days. They've been echoed back and forth for months and there's not always need to go over the list again.

Rodolphus looks up, and he feels Augustus moving with him when the door opens and he doesn't even bother to move at all. He's stopped caring about a lot of things, and a lack of modesty feels like it has little importance compared to everything else that's wrong with him.

It's only Narcissa, so it wouldn't have mattered either way.

Seeing Narcissa gives him a little more reason to sit up straighter, though, and it gives him more reason to at least make a genuine attempt at conversation because if there's anything she needs from them it's that. War hasn't been kind to any of them, and though she hasn't been to Azkaban, Rodolphus isn't dumb enough to think she's doing as good as she makes herself appear to be.

Rodolphus feels like there's something he's forgetting when he asks her how she's doing, like there's something that's happened or that was supposed to happen today that he doesn't remember. There's a lot of those things these days. His memory used to be excellent, but it feels like nothing registers anymore.

He's right about this. Augustus, who's angrier than he is but whose memory is not as shattered, has sat up too and with a carefully put question reminds Rodolphus of what has happened today.

"Lucius' trial, Cissa?"

It's been two weeks since the fiasco in the Department of Mysteries, where Augustus used to work during the first war, and Rodolphus' first thought is that the ministry has gotten better at holding trials on time. His second thought is a realisation he should've made immediately.

Lucius has had his trial. Lucius isn't here.

Narcissa only nods, silently, and it hurts him more than Rodolphus wants to admit to see her so fragile. She's not a fragile witch, she's never been and he knows she's not now either, but it's frightening, all the same, to see her look the part so well.

There are bags under her eyes that he knows she normally hides with a glamour charm and there are tears on her cheeks, she's impossibly pale in a way that is normally mesmerising but now makes her look ill in combination with the haunted look in normally so vivid blue eyes.

In contrast, her hair is perfectly done in a familiar but elegant updo and she's wearing charcoal grey robes that Rodolphus knows are meant for mourning. The heels that he thinks she should've tripped on given how unstable she looks are a perfect fit to complete the look. Narcissa looks every bit the widow that she's not. Not really, but might as well be.

"Life," Narcissa tells them in a deadpan voice as if it doesn't matter, as if she doesn't feel the pain that no doubt courses through her like wildfire right now. "Lucius has received a life sentence in Azkaban. And the Dark Lord wishes to see Draco when he returns from Hogwarts."

There's a flicker of terror behind her eyes and Rodolphus reaches out to take her hand the moment she sits down on the bed, though not before she's whispered a cleaning charm after she's eyed the half-finished bottle of fire whiskey. Narcissa takes his hand with a tearful smile and, for a reason he can't figure out, kicks off her shoes with the same elegance he vaguely remembers her using during dinner parties she used to host.

"A life sentence won't be life, not as long as the war isn't lost," Rodolphus tells her, and when Narcissa's eyes dart from his to Augustus' the other man shrugs in agreement, his gaze softer than it's been most of the time since the break-out.

They can be war-torn and rough with one another, and they know too well that Narcissa too would be able to handle the sharp-cutting edges Azkaban as left them with, but she's an exception. Just because she can deal with it, doesn't mean she should. There's enough suffering going around as is.

Neither of them mentions Draco.

Lucius failed the mission he was meant to lead and through his failure lost the Dark Lord a prophecy he desperately needed. There's only so much their Lord can now want from Lucius' son, and none of the possible reasons will be of any comfort to Narcissa. There's only so much pretending otherwise can do for her or any of them.

"There's no use pretending we have a chance at winning this war, is there?"

Narcissa's voice is just as devoid of feeling as it was earlier. Her statement is met with an echoing of two men who've lost all hope already. "We used to believe we stood a chance," Augustus mutters, and as if by magic the atmosphere in the room becomes more nostalgic than hopeless.

"We used to," Rodolphus agrees half-heartedly, leaning his head back against the headboard with a wistful look in his eyes. He doesn't catch Narcissa's short response, but he smiles down at her when she shifts to sit next to him, her legs folded beneath her so her knees are half on top of him. It's another reminder of how things used to be, but this closeness that's always come so easy to them is something he's glad they haven't lost.

During the first war, they used to believe.

None of them would have joined the cause or would have gotten even remotely involved with it if they hadn't been convinced it had been the right one; if they hadn't been sure it'd be worth it. Rodolphus' memory fails him from anything beyond that fatal night after the Dark Lord's demise, but what he remembers from the years before that is nothing but good.

It's dinner parties that Narcissa would host in Malfoy Manor, to which only the utmost upper class of their society would be invited. There would be gossip and expensive food and more expensive champagne and everybody would be dressed to the nines as if that did anything to hide the fact that they were all, every single one of them, messed up in their own secretive ways. Rodolphus hadn't always seen the point in events like that, but Narcissa had thrived during them.

What he remembers from the first war is nights spent drinking until late in the night with Rabastan over board games and magazines they only read ironically, complaining about Rodolphus' family-in-law and about the less-than-elegant tasks the Dark Lord sometimes demanded of them.

Rodolphus remembers ministry galas and charity events and so much more of such occasions that always started with Bellatrix on his arm as they laughed and danced and played the part of over-the-moon newly-weds and always ended with Augustus in his bed or wherever he could have him. He remembers the adrenaline rush that came with duels that he can now not even imagine feeling any more.

He remembers being twenty-two years old and feeling like the world lay at his feet and he knows perfectly well that the two people here with him felt the exact same way. They'd been young and they'd been so stupid to think the war was going to be anything but a disastrous trauma and they'd been in over their heads before they'd even realised what they'd gotten into and they'd felt like the world had been theirs for the taking.

Never once during the first war had Rodolphus doubted that they would win. Never once had he questioned if the sacrifices made in the name of the Dark Lord were worth it.

Today it's hard to bring himself to even pretend they have a chance, and it's even harder to try to make any sort of effort to the cause seem worth it.

They're no longer twenty-two years old. They're not as desperate for glory and they're not as naive as they were during the first war.

"Maybe we'll be alright," Rodolphus whispers, and though both Augustus and Narcissa scoff at his words he feels their attention shift to him. He didn't plan on saying much more than that, but now he feels like he should continue whatever wishful statement he just started.

It's all pretend anyway, there's no point in pretending it's more than that, so it hardly matters what he says, Rodolphus supposes.

"Maybe we'll win the war. Maybe we'll lose it, but we won't go back to Azkaban." Rodolphus takes the bottle that Augustus was still holding and takes a large swig of whiskey before continuing when no one interrupts him to tell him how naive these words are. They all know, that's not the point.

He closes his eyes. "In a few years… Lucius will be free and Draco will be fine and the three of us will be okay. We won't be back in Azkaban, we won't be dead. We'll-" Rodolphus falls silent when he doesn't know what else they'd be doing. What is there out there for them besides dying in a war they don't want to fight?

When Augustus continues in his stead, Rodolphus opens his eyes and catches Narcissa's look. She offers him a teary-eyed smile, and for a moment the pretence feels alright.

"In a few years, we'll be in France, whether we've won or not. It can be like it used to be. High society, being able to act like the war doesn't exist, dressing up to make everything else fade away, it'll be like before."

It won't be and they all know it, but it's a nice thought so for a while no one says a word to counter the idea.

They're no longer reckless, power-hungry, insecure, and stupid twenty-two-year olds; but Sweet Salazar Slytherin, the war was so much easier when they were.


End file.
